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“Our Struggle”: Garden Under Threat

This is a catch-up post, but in October we were served with an order to vacate and in November with an actual summons to court. Both came from HUD LLC, who claim to own the property at 237 Maple St. We have now appeared twice in Brooklyn Housing court, as our able attorney, Paula Segal, seeks to have the plaintiffs’ motion dismissed on the grounds that the papers were improperly served (stuffed into a garden bed instead of sent through the mail or placed in someone’s hands). Each time garden members, wearing Maple Street Garden tee-shirts created by Julia Stanat, sat through the proceedings to show the judge just who Paula was representing. Here are seven (plus Paula) of the eight who were present on February 6th.

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The judge adjourned the case till April 1st and granted us a restraining order to keep HUD LLC from interfering with the property.

We also met on January 23rd with City Council Member Matthieu Eugene, with the goal of getting the city to condemn the property by eminent domain and putting it under the Parks Department. Twelve of us showed up for that, plus Maurice, our youngest member.

The councilman was clearly impressed to see such a big turnout, and though he made no promises, we think he will consider our situation sympathetically. We hope to meet with him again. Tentative date: March 6th at 3, 123 Linden Boulevard. Save the date and if you can come with us, please do! The more voters show up, the greater our clout.